What EVERY author needs!

Today I’m massively excited to have one of my best writing buddies visiting my blog and she’s written such a feel good and funny post that I hope you’ll all enjoy as much as I did. 

Welcome Cathryn Hein! Cathryn’s next release the fabulous ROCKING HORSE HILL (don’t you just LOVE that title?) releases tomorrow and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll grab a copy ASAP! There might just be a giveaway on this post if you read to the end 🙂

Take it away, Cathryn…

Every Author Needs…

It’s often said that a writer’s life is a solitary one. We spend a lot of time with our computers or notebooks, having conversations in our heads with people that don’t exist. I have days, sometimes even a week – usually during structural edits with a deadline looming – where I don’t leave the house.

Which is why writing buddies are so important. They keep you sane when you’re too busy or too much of a stressed-out freak to get out in real life. They listen when you rant and rage, cheer when something brilliant happens, give sage advice or a calming word when needed, and share all the ups and downs of this strange but fascinating business. With a single email, text or phone call they can make the bad seem good and the good seem brilliant. They are, in other words, a must.

I met Rach at the 2007 Romance Writers of Australia conference in Sydney. Fate had us sitting together in one of Valerie Parv’s sessions, a hands-on tutorial where we were asked to collaborate on creating a story premise with conflict. We came up with a completely over-the-top Cinderella type story set in a funeral parlour. It was great fun and we clicked in that indefinable way that people sometimes do, and been good friends ever since.

But Rach lives in WA and I live… well, we move around quite a lot but generally along Australia’s east coast. That means most of the time we only see each other at conferences. So we make up for it with phone calls, texts and emails. LOTS of emails.

At the risk of revealing how paranoid and self-doubting authors are, and exposing the embarrassing number of shouty capitals and exclamation marks we use in our correspondence, here are a couple of samples of the sort of chat that goes on…

From an exchange titled:

So…

RACH: I need to write but can’t settle with Lach at home. Am letting him play on the iPad and telling myself it’s okay cos he’s sick but still hard to concentrate with him at home. But am out at talk all day tomorrow, so NEED words. Although my house also needs desperate attention and I feel like making a cake. Maybe I’ll aim for 1k and if I do that can make a cake!

CATHRYN: Make the cake and write while it’s baking. Have a sprint to see how many words you can get in that time. I’m writing but it’s awful, horrible crap and setting my teeth on edge.

RACH: Can’t be any more horrible and awful than mine! Seriously!

CATHRYN: Wanna bet???

From an exchange titled:

Send in the white jacket people

CATHRYN: It has taken me almost ALL MORNING to tweak one bloody chapter!!! The book is going to send me INSANE! It’s all so wrong. Wrong, wrong, WRONG! ARGH!

RACH: LOL! Just got home from school drop off to your message!! I bet it sells its bloody socks off!! I cannot imagine ANYTHING you write being poo. I consider you a MUCH better writer than me, so I take on your paranoia too and think it must mean GHOST is shite!!

CATHRYN: You, my dear, haven’t a thing to worry about. Ghost will sell its bum off like all your others!!! 

Ahem. Okay, so I admit we sound like a couple of teenagers, with the same level of self-absorption, but that’s not the point. The point is that we rally one another and joke around even when we might feel we’re the worst writers in the universe or about to melt from worry.

Terrible articulation or not, I wouldn’t miss these for the world.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what we’re like when we actually meet? Just add hugs and squeals!

Yup, we’re as noisy in person as in our emails. Which just might be another reason why writers tend not to get out much…

Aw Cathryn, I wouldn’t have our friendship any other way either. Now happy blog readers, check out the blurb of ROCKING HORSE HILL below and enter the contest!

 

Ever since she was a little girl, Emily Wallace-Jones has loved Rocking Horse Hill. The beautiful family property is steeped in history. Everything important in Em’s life has happened there. And even though Em’s brother Digby has inherited the property, he has promised Em it will be her home for as long as she wishes.

When Digby falls in love with sweet Felicity Townsend, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Em worries about the future. But she is determined not to treat Felicity with the same teenage snobbery that tore apart her relationship with her first love, Josh Sinclair. A man who has now sauntered sexily back into Em’s life and given her a chance for redemption.

But as Felicity settles in, the once tightly knitted Wallace-Jones family begins to fray. Suspicions are raised, Josh voices his distrust, and even Em’s closest friends question where Felicity’s motives lie. Conflicted but determined to make up for the damage caused by her past prejudices, Em sides with her brother and his fiancée until a near tragedy sets in motion a chain of events that will change the family forever.

Rocking Horse Hill is a moving family drama and passionate love story from the author of Heartland.

Tell us your friendship stories. The quirky things, the way you celebrate them, even how you met. Share and you’ll be in with a chance to win a signed copy of Cathryn’s brand new rural romance Rocking Horse Hill.

Giveaway closes Wednesday 30th April. Australian postal addresses only.

If you’d like to learn more about Cathryn and her books, please visit her website. You can also connect via Facebook, Twitter as @CathrynHein and Google+